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March 30, 2005
Portable Wars
So remember all those things I was going to post about? Well I decided against it favoring to abandon the telling of many old tidbits in favor of one, more recent, morsel.
In case any of you needed to know, I still hate Sony. Not the makers of fine components, televisions and headphones but rather the horrid cyst within known as the 'Playstation Division' that pumps out mediocre crap that can only be loosely categorized as 'video games'. My distaste for the company began when the original Playstation launched and I must admit it was quite sophomoric. The whole affair hinged solely on the notion that they were trying to dethrone Nintendo as the kings of gaming which I viewed as a disrespectful act after they so lovingly supplied us with so many timeless experiences on the NES and SNES. It wasn’t competition I feared, Sega Saturn and Sega CD proved mere pygmies in this battle of giants, but rather because they were taking developers away from the franchise. I know this may sound silly now but Final Fantasy VII wasn’t going to be on N64?! I was young at the time but the experience was quite jarring to say the least.
This disapproval with the company turned to solid detestation when friends of mine became proponents of the Playstation based on the most retarded of arguments: ‘but look how many games it has?’ As if the mere presence of numerous discs somehow verifies its greatness! It wasn’t, ‘look how many great games it has’ but simply ‘look how many are up on the shelf!’ I was content to play Goldeneye for the billionth time while waiting for Ocarina to drop and would easily sacrifice my first-born just to own the system that was able to play such amazing titles as Mario Kart 64 and The New Tetris. It was now safe to say that I was in the camp of quality and not quantity.
Being the American consumer that I am, I will always flirt with the notion of purchasing something when it is first announced, even if it does have ‘Playstation’ in its name. Though I must admit to all of you that I was simply waiting for the first batch of bad news about the PSP and a few months ago Sony certainly didn’t disappoint. Assured this would curb an insane amount of sales I had apparently forgotten about Sony’s fanboy contingent and the hype around the PSP didn’t seem to diminish in the least. It was ridiculous to me that blatantly bad design could be dismissed so nonchalantly as if having a larger screen warranted an entire button becoming obsolete; again, the whole different camps thing.
Well now it comes out that pixels are dying on the PSP’s screen faster than brain cells at a Phish concert. In response to its customers dissatisfied outcries, Sony responded with yet another ridiculous press-release. This time their excuse stems from a rather common occurrence, that all LCD’s loose pixels over time. This is in fact true but I’ve had my TiBook for almost three years and it still is yet to loose a single pixel and it has gobs more than the PSP. When I explain this to my PSP owning friends they respond like a conditioned pet of Pavlov, ‘but look how many games it has!’
I am happy to report that the purchase of a DS is still on the horizon, thank you very much. Though Nintendo continues its ridiculous tradition of releasing only a few games at launch I believe in the system and will wait for a few more titles to drop, confident in the magnificent experience they will produce. Hell, for Wario Ware: Touched alone the money is worth it. If you need any further proof for the DS’s superiority just check this out.
My trip has been going well but there is simply too much to post about that I will save any reflections til my return next week. Goodbye for now!
Posted by Jon at March 30, 2005 05:37 PM
Comments
I love stuff, like fluffy things.
Posted by: Hairy Fish Man at March 31, 2005 01:28 AM
None of your links are working for me.
Posted by: Murph at March 31, 2005 03:34 PM
Murph,
Thanks for the heads up on the links. I constructed my post in Microsoft Word on a PC so it changed a double quote to double single quotes in my link code. If only every computer worked as effortlessly as a Mac... ;)
Posted by: Jon at March 31, 2005 06:10 PM
For cryin' out loud, Jon. You should have a post a night so we know what Arizona is all about! Okay, maybe not. Just in case I bought you something… yep. A DS. Diet Soda. Hurry back now, ya here?
Posted by: Spastabus at April 1, 2005 04:56 AM
If the whole buying-me-a-ds thing is an April Fools joke than it is a very unfunny one, if it's not than you are the greatest fellow coupon monkey ever. I'll be home soon where I'll post pictures and a proper write up.
Posted by: Jon at April 1, 2005 03:26 PM
*sniffles* I miss you, come home.
Posted by: MarthVader at April 2, 2005 06:45 PM
Well, until Jon comes home give Boots and Pup a try. I've take all of the strips so far and put them on one handy-dandy little link.
http://www.atomiczap.com/sofar/archive.html
Shameless self promo.
Posted by: Spastabus at April 3, 2005 09:12 PM